Parallel Extinction Excerpts #1

There are a few spoilers mixed in with these various excerpts, taken from different places in the story.

Before publication, Parallel Extinction had chapter titles. Here are two excerpts from two chapters:

Love No Amore

Ancient DNA modifications gave Taylor Jest the gift of stunning beauty, but an adrenal malady had cropped up in her genetics. At an early age, full of innocence and mischief, TJ had learned that she could skip the meds and get a natural dose of epinephrine if sufficiently excited by something. Death-defying stunts, for one. With her wicked sense of play, she had many times brought both men and woman along on her excursions—like Garrison. The dangerous stunts gave her the needed epinephrine, but an additional boost of natural elevation came from her laughter at the friends’ reactions. Getting through school by her late-teens, she discovered men in a big way—and vice versa. She found that sex—if done right—could provide her with a similar chemical response as the stunts. Outrageous sex became part of her life objective.

Locked and Loaded

Interplanetary piracy was essentially a one-time opportunity for men and woman who might subscribe to it. Even local space involved great distances, and the years spent traveling to areas of richer plunder were wasted once these bandits were caught. The military had the advantage by far, in a pursuit, readily capturing these pirates. They were brought back to Earth to serve their prison sentence.

The penal system did its pitiful best to instill morality in these criminals. By the time they attained their freedom, the idea of a new, years-long journey was the real device that kept them from reoffending. With the wisdom of the discouraged, instead of returning to piracy, many satisfied their thirst for space and violence by signing on with a USUCC ship.